Zakharchenko A.V. The GULAG labour resources at the “great constructions of communism” in 1948–1953: the mobilisation capacities of a system or the deadlock of a camp economy?

Abstract: At the end of the 1940s – beginning of the 1950s according to the Stalinist direction plans the USSR developed the construction of large hydrotechnical structures, named by the state propaganda as the “great constructions of communism”. Many of them were located at the Middle and Lower Volga: the Volga-Don water canal, the Kuybyshev and Stalingrad hydroelectric power stations. The construction of these units was given to the GULAG system. The “great constructions” can be seen as a certain display of camp economy of the post-war period. It was there that was conducted a mass transfer of former prisoners, who received release in the status of civilian workers, but were still limited in their freedom of choice, forcibly “attached” to the GULAG constructions. There the Stalinist direction tried to restore the earlier abrogated instruments of prisoner labour motivation (wages, count of work days), giving additional impulse to the camp system. The article analyses how much the labour resources disposed by the camp economy reflected its mobilisation capacities. The author answers the question of whether one can speak of GULAG mobilisation benefits in the resolution of the economic problems at the end of the 1940s – beginning of the 1950s, considering the rapid disintegration of the camp-production complex begun after the death of Stalin. The author further investigates the question of what internal contradictions ultimately made it impossible for the GULAG to fulfil the functions of an economic agent. Finally, the article concludes whether the problems of the post-war camp economy can be considered as a vivid testament that the system came to a deadlock.

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